The board of directors of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Outaouais have voted unanimously to support their embattled executive director, Yvonne Dubé.

Dubé, who has headed the organization since 2015, was put under the spotlight last week when Radio-Canada revealed she had once been admonished in Ontario for practising law without a licence. When Radio-Canada reporter Antoine Trépanier emailed Dubé about an on-camera interview she had agreed to do and later cancelled, Dubé called police to complain.

Gatineau police arrested Trépanier and ordered him to appear in court June 18 on a charge of criminal harassment.

On Tuesday, the chairman of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Outaouais, Richard Gravel, said Dubé has the full confidence of the board and was endorsed at a special meeting held Saturday.

The main point, Gravel said, was the work Dubé has accomplished at the agency over the three years she’s been there. She has been particularly efficient at fundraising and organizing activities to increase the agency’s profile and coverage. The agency’s fundraising revenue has more than doubled under Dubé’s tenure to more than $1 million, he said.

“In the three years she has been here, we have grown from 195 children we are providing service to, to more than 500,” he said.

“We estimate there’s a potential pool of 1,000 kids in the region, so there’s a way to go, but the progress has been excellent.”

More than half of the agency’s board of directors have quit in recent months, but Gravel described that as normal turnover for a non-profit agency, where board members are most often volunteers who have other work or duties to handle. Gravel noted that the organization has been shortlisted for an award of excellence in a program run by Quebec’s health department to honour non-profit volunteer agencies.

Meanwhile, the charges laid against Trépanier have been criticized by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and in a national editorial in The Globe and Mail.

“The board of directors discussed Dubé’s decision (to lodge the complaint) and the consensus was that it’s a free society and it was her decision to make,” Gravel said Tuesday.

“It’s also her decision whether to withdraw the complaint or to follow up on it … we have no opinion on that,” he said.

Despite the charges against Trépanier, it’s business at usual at Le Droit, said editor-in-chief Patrice Gaudreault.

“The essential part of the daily work of our journalists is to contact and question multiple sources, in order to have detailed and complete stories,” Gaudreault said in an email. “It is particularly important to have the comments of the person directly involved, so that they can explain themselves and often give another side to a story. Even though the arrest of a journalist surprised us, we did not change our journalistic practices.”

Nikki Mantell, publisher of the Low Down to Hull and Back News, called the charges against Trépanier “ridiculous.”

“And if you were to ask, we’re not worried about it. If anything, it’s more reason to keep doing what we’re doing,” she said.

Mantell said she couldn’t recall a reporter ever being charged by police, but said Chelsea Mayor Caryl Green once sent a bailiff to the paper with a lawyer’s letter after Green’s first election win in 2010.

“It said she did not like our coverage of the election … and vaguely threatened us and demanded better coverage in the future,” Mantell said. “She wasn’t threatening to sue, but it was sent to us by a lawyer and the intention was pretty clear,” Mantell said.

“To her credit, she (Green) is really good with us now. She takes our phone calls all the time and she’s a really responsive mayor. We don’t always like what she says and she doesn’t always like what we write … but I think people understand what the roles of a journalist is.

“Papers know they have to keep on doing their job and asking tough questions and having thick skins. Especially in this era of fake news, our jobs are more important than ever.”

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